THE EXPLOSION
Meanwhile Hamilton came back to his room with the Dictator. The Dictator
looked fresh, bright, wide-awake, and ready for anything. He had
grumbled a little on being roused, and was at first inclined rather
peevishly to 'pooh-pooh' all suggestion of conspiracies and personal
danger.
He even went so far as to say that, on the whole, he would rather prefer
to be allowed to have his sleep out, even though it were to be concisely
rounded off by his death. But he soon pulled himself together and got
out of that perverse and sleepy mood, and by the time he and Hamilton
had found Sarrasin, the Dictator was well up to all the duties of a
commander-in-chief. He had a rapid review of the situation with
Sarrasin.
'What I don't see,' he quietly said--he knew too well to try
whispering--'is why I should not keep to my own room. If anything is
going to happen I am well forewarned, and shall be well fore-armed, and
I shall be pretty well able to take care of myself; and why should
anyone else run any risk on my account?'
'It isn't on your account,' Sarrasin answered, a little bluntly.
'No? Well, I am glad to hear that. On whose account, then, may I ask?'
'On account of Gloria,' Sarrasin answered decisively. 'If Hamilton here
is killed, or _I_ am killed, it does not matter a straw so far as Gloria
is concerned. But if you got killed, who, I want to know, is to go out
to Gloria? Gloria would not rise for Hamilton or me.'
The Dictator could say nothing. He could only clasp in silence the hand
of either man.
'They are putting out the lights downstairs,' Sarrasin said in a low
tone. 'I had better get to my lair.'
'Have you got a revolver?' Hamilton asked.
'Never go without one, dear boy.' Then Sarrasin stole away with the
noiseless tread of the Red Indian, whose comrade and whose enemy he had
been so often.
Hamilton closed his door, but did not fasten it. The electric light
still burned softly there.
'Will you smoke?' Hamilton asked. 'I smoke here every night, and
Sarrasin too, mostly. It won't arouse any suspicion if the smoke gets
about the corridor. I am often up much later than this. You need not
answer, and then your voice can't be heard. Just take a cigar.'
The Dictator quietly nodded, and took two cigars, which he selected very
carefully, and began to smoke.
'Do you know,' Ericson said, 'that to-morrow is my birthday? No--I mean
it is already my birthday.'
'As if I didn't know,' Hamilton replied.
'Odd, if anything should happen.'
Then there was absolute silence in the room. Each man kept his thoughts
to himself, and yet each knew well enough what the other was thinking
of. Ericson was thinking, among other things, how, if there should
really be some assassin-plot, what a trouble and a scandal and even a
serious danger he should have brought upon the Langleys, who were so
kind and sweet to him. He was thinking of Sarrasin, and of the danger
the gallant veteran was running for a cause which, after all, was no
cause of his. He could hardly as yet believe in the existence of the
murder-plot; and still, with his own knowledge of the practices of
former Governments in Gloria, he could not look upon the positive
evidence of Sarrasin's telegram from across the Atlantic and the sudden
suspicions of Dolores as insignificant. He knew well that one of the
practices of former Governments in Gloria had been, when they wanted a
dangerous enemy removed, to employ some educated and clever criminal
already under conviction and sentence of death, and release him for the
time with the promise that, if he should succeed in doing their work,
means should be found to relieve him from his penalty altogether. When
he became Dictator he had himself ordered the re-arrest of two such men
who had had the audacity to return to the capital to claim their reward,
under the impression that they should find their old friends still in
power. He commuted the death punishment in their case, bad as they were,
on the principle that they were the victims of a loathsome system, and
that they were tempted into the new crime. But he left them to
imprisonment for life. Ericson had a strong general objection to the
infliction of capital punishment--to the punishment that is irreparable,
that cannot be recalled. He was not actually an uncompromising opponent
on moral grounds of the principle of capital punishment, but he would
think long before sanctioning its infliction.
He was wondering, in an idle sort of way, whether he could remember the
appearance or the name of either of these two men. He might perhaps
remember the names; he did not believe he could recall the faces.
Clearly the Dictator wanted that great gift which, according to popular
tradition or belief, always belonged to the true leaders of men--the
gift of remembering every face one ever has seen, and every name one has
ever heard. Alexander had it, we are told, and Julius Cæsar, and Oliver
Cromwell, and Claverhouse, and Napoleon Bonaparte, and Brigham Young.
Napoleon, to be sure, worked it up, as we have lately come to know, by
collusion with some of his officers; and it may be that Brigham Young
was occasionally coached by devoted Elders at Salt Lake City. At all
events, it would not appear that the Dictator either had the gift, or at
present the means of being provided with any substitute for it. He could
not remember the appearance of the men he had saved from execution. It
is curious, however, how much of his time and his thoughts they had
occupied or wasted while he was waiting for the first sound that might
be expected to give the alarm.
Hamilton looked at his watch. The Dictator motioned to him, and Hamilton
turned the face of the watch towards him. Half-past one o'clock Ericson
saw. He looked tired. Hamilton made a motion towards his own bed which
clearly signified, 'would you like to lie down for a little?' Ericson
replied by a sign of assent, and presently he stretched himself half on
the bed and half off--on the coverlet of the bed as to his head and
shoulders, with his legs hanging over the side and his feet on the
floor--and he thought again, about his birthday, and so he fell asleep.
Hamilton had often seen him fall asleep like this in the immediate
presence of danger, but only when there was nothing that could
immediately, and in the expected course of things, exact or even call
for his personal attention or his immediate command. Now, however,
Hamilton somewhat marvelled at the power of concentration which could
enable his chief to give himself at once up to sleep with the knowledge
that some sort of danger--purely personal danger--hung over him, the
nature, the form, and the time of which were absolutely hidden in
darkness. Very brave men, familiar with the perils and horrors of war,
experienced duellists, intrepid explorers, seamen whose nerves are never
shaken by the white squall of the Levant, or the storm in the Bay of
Biscay, or the tempest round some of the most rugged coasts of
Australia--such men are often turned white-livered by the threat of
assassination--that terrible pestilence which walks abroad at night or
in the dusk, and dogs remorselessly the footsteps of the victim. But
Ericson slept composedly, and his deep, steady breathing seemed to tell
pale-hearted fear it lied.
And other thoughts, too, came up into Hamilton's mind. He had long put
away all wild hopes and dreams of Helena. He had utterly given her up;
he had seen only too clearly which way her love was stretching its
tentacula, and he had long since submitted himself to the knowledge that
they did not stretch themselves out to grapple with the strings of his
heart. He knew that Helena loved the Dictator. He bent to the knowledge;
he was not sorry _now_ any more. But he wondered if the Dictator in his
iron course was sleeping quietly in the front of danger for him which
must mean misery for _her_, and was thinking nothing about her. Surely
he must know, by this time, that she loved him! Surely he must love
her--that bright, gifted, generous, devoted girl? Was she, then,
misprized by Ericson? Was the Dictator's heart so full of his own
political and patriotic schemes and enterprises that he could not spare
a thought, even in his dreams, for the girl who so adored him, and whom
Hamilton had at one time so much adored? Did this stately tree never
give a thought to the beautiful and fresh flower that drank the dew at
its feet?
Suddenly Ericson turned on the bed, and from his sleeping lips came a
murmuring cry--a low-voiced plaint, instinct with infinite love and
yearning and pathos--and the only words then spoken were the words
'Helena, Helena!' And then the question of Hamilton's mind was answered,
and Ericson shook himself free of sleep, and turned on the bed, and sat
up and looked at Hamilton, and was clearly master of the situation.
'I have been sleeping,' he said, in the craftily-qualified tone of the
experienced one who thoroughly understands the difference in a time of
danger between the carefully subdued tone and the penetrating, sibilant
whisper. 'Nothing has happened?'
Hamilton made a gesture of negation.
'It must come soon--if it is to come at all,' Ericson said. 'And it will
come--I know it--I have had a dream.'
'You don't believe in dreams?' Hamilton murmured gently.
'I don't believe in all dreams, boy; I do believe in that dream.'
'Hush!' said Hamilton, holding up his hand.
Some faint, vague sounds were heard in the corridor. The Dictator and
Hamilton remained absolutely motionless and silent.
The Duchess had disappeared into her room for a while, and called
together her maids and passed them in review. It was a whim of the
good-hearted young Duchess to go round to country-houses carrying three
maids along with her. She had one maid as her personal and bodily
attendant, a second to dress her hair, and a third maid to look after
her packing and her dresses. She had honestly got under the impression
of late years that a woman could not be well looked after who had not
three maids to go about with her and see to her wants. When first she
settled down at Seagate Hall with her three attendant Graces, Helena was
almost inclined to resent such an invasion as an insult. It would not
have mattered, the girl said to her father, if it were at King's
Langley, where were rooms enough for a squadron of maids; but here, at
Seagate Hall, the accommodation of which was limited, what an
extraordinary thing to do! Who ever heard of a woman going about with
three maids? Sir Rupert, however, would not have a breath of murmur
against the three maids, and the Duchess made herself so thoroughly
agreeable and sympathetic in every other way that Helena soon forgot the
infliction of the three maids. 'I only hope they are made quite
comfortable,' she said to the dignified housekeeper.
'A good deal more comfortable, Miss, than they had any right to expect,'
was the reply, and so all was settled.
This night, then, the Duchess summoned her maids around her and had her
hair 'fixed,' as she would herself have expressed it, and then made up
her mind to pay a visit to Helena. She had become really quite fond of
Helena--all the more because she felt sure that the girl had a
love-secret--and wished very much that Helena would take her into
confidence.
The Duchess appeared in Helena's room draped in a lovely dressing-gown
and wearing slippers with be-diamonded buckles. The Duchess evidently
was ready for a long dressing-gown talk. She liked to contemplate
herself in one of her new Parisian dressing-gowns, and she was quite
willing to give Helena her share in the gratification of the sight. But
Helena's thoughts were hopelessly away from dressing-gowns, even from
her own. She became aware after a while that the Duchess was giving her
a history of some marvellous new dresses she had brought from Paris, and
which were to be displayed lavishly during the short time left of the
London season, and at Goodwood, and afterwards at various
country-houses.
'You're sleepy, child,' the Duchess suddenly said, 'and I am keeping you
up with my talk.'
'No, indeed, Duchess, I am not in the least sleepy, and it's very kind
of you to come and talk to me.'
'Well, if you ain't sleepy you are sorrowful, or something like it. So
your Dictator _is_ going to try his luck again! Well, clear, I just wish
you and I could help some. By the way, don't you take my countrymen here
as just our very best specimens of Americans.'
'I hadn't much noticed,' Helena said listlessly. 'They seemed very quiet
men.'
'Meaning that American men in general are rather noisy and
self-assertive?' the Duchess said with a smile.
'Oh, no, Duchess, I never meant anything of the kind. But they _do_ seem
very quiet, don't they?'
'Stupid, _I_ should say,' was the comment of the Duchess. 'I didn't talk
much with Mr. Copping, but I had a little talk with Professor Flick. I
am afraid, by the way, _he_ thinks me very stupid, for I appear to have
got him mixed up in my mind with somebody quite different, and you know
it vexes anybody to be mistaken for anybody else. I meant to ask him
what State he hailed from, but I quite forgot. His accent didn't seem
quite familiar to me somehow. I wish I had thought of asking him.' The
Duchess seemed so much in earnest about the matter that Helena felt
inspired to say, by way of consoling her:
'Dear Duchess, you can ask him the important question to-morrow. I dare
say he will not be offended.'
'Well, now that's just what I have been thinking about, dear child. You
see, I have already put my foot in it.'
'Won't do much harm,' Helena said smiling--'foot is too small.'
'Come now, that's very prettily said;' and the gratified Duchess
stretched out half-unconsciously a very small and pretty foot, cased in
an exquisite shoe and stocking, and then drew it in again, as if
thinking that she must not seem to be personally vindicating Helena's
compliment. 'But he might be offended, perhaps, if I were to convey the
idea that I knew nothing at all of him or his place of birth. Well--good
night, child; we shall meet him anyhow to-morrow.' She kissed Helena and
left the room.
When the Duchess had gone, Helena sat in her bedroom, broad awake. She
had got her hair arranged and put on a dressing-gown, and sent her maid
to bed long before, and now she took up a book and tried to read it, and
now and then put it wearily down upon her lap, and then took it up again
and read a page or two more, and then put it away again, and went back
to think over things. What was she thinking about? Mostly, if not
altogether, of the few words the Dictator had spoken to her--the words
that told her he must cut short his visit to Seagate Hall. She knew
quite well what that meant. It meant, of course, that he was going out
to fling himself upon the shore of Gloria, and that he might never come
back. He might have miscalculated the strength of his following in
Gloria--and then it was all but certain that he must die for his
mistake. Or he might have calculated wisely--and then he would be
welcomed back to the Dictatorship of Gloria, and then he would--oh! she
was sure he would--drive back the invaders from the frontier, and she
would be proud, oh! so proud, of that! But then he would remain in
Gloria, and devote himself to Gloria, and come back to England no more.
How women have to suffer for a political cause! Not merely the mothers
and wives and sisters who have to see their loved ones go to the prison
or the scaffold for some political question which they regard, from
their domestic point of view, as a pure nuisance and curse because it
takes the loved one from them. Oh! but there is more than that, worse
than that, when a woman is willing to be devoted to the cause, but finds
her heart torn with agony by the thought that her lover cares more for
the cause than he cares for _her_--that for the sake of the cause he
could live without her, and even could forget her!
This was what Helena was thinking of this night, as she outwatched the
stars, and knew by his tale half-told that the Dictator would soon be
leaving her, in all probability for ever. He was not her lover in any
sense. He had never made love to her. He had never even taken seriously
her innocently bold advances towards him. He had taken them as the sweet
and kindly advances of a girl who out of her generosity of heart was
striving to make the course of life pleasant for a banished man with a
ruined career. Helena saw all this with brave impartial eyes. She had
judged rightly up to a certain point; but she did not see, she could not
see, she could not be expected to see, how a time came about when the
Dictator had begun to be afraid of the part he was playing--of the time
when the Dictator grew acquainted with his heart, and searched what
stirred it so--according to the tender and lovely words of Beaumont and
Fletcher--and, alas! had found it love. Strange that these two hearts so
thoroughly affined should be so misjudging each of the other! It was
like the story told in Uhland's touching poem, which probably no one
reads now, even in Uhland's own Germany, about the youth who is leaving
his native town for ever, accompanied by the _geleit_--the escort, the
'send-off'--of his companion-students, and who looks back to the window
which the maiden has just opened and thinks, 'If she had but loved me!'
and a tear comes into the girl's deep blue eye, and she closes her
window, hopeless, and thinks, 'If he had but loved me!'
'And now he is going!' thought Helena. And at that hour Ericson was
waking up, aroused from sleep by the sound of his own softly-breathed
word 'Helena!'
'It is now his birthday,' she thought.
Soame Rivers was not in his character very like Hamlet. But of course
there is that one touch of nature that makes the whole world kin, and
the touch of nature that made Hamlet and Soame Rivers kin to-night was
found in the fact that on this night, as on a memorable night of
Hamlet's career, in his heart there was 'a kind of fighting' that would
not let him sleep. He sat up fully dressed. The one thing present to his
mind was the thought that, if anything whatever should happen to the
Dictator--and the more the night grew later, the more the possibility
seemed to enlarge upon him--the ruin of all Soame Rivers's career seemed
certain. Inquiry would assuredly be made into the exact hour when the
telegram was sent from the Foreign Office and when it was received at
Sir Rupert Langley's, and it would be known that Rivers had that
telegram for hours in his hands without telling anyone about it. It was
easy in the light and the talk of the dining-room and the billiard-room
to tell one's self that there could be no possible danger threatening
anyone in an English gentleman's country-house. But now, in the deep of
the night, in the loneliness, with the knowledge of what Sarrasin had
said, all looked so different. It was easy at that earlier and brighter
and more self-confident hour to crumple up a telegram and make nothing
of it; but now Soame Rivers could only curse himself for his levity and
his folly. What would Helena Langley say to him?
Was there anything he could do to retrieve his position? Only one thing
occurred to him. He could go and hide himself somewhere in shade or in
darkness near the Dictator's door. If any attempt at assassination
should be made, he might be in advance of Sarrasin and Hamilton. If
nothing should happen, he at least would be found at his self-ordained
post of watchfulness by Hamilton and Sarrasin, and they would report of
him to Sir Rupert--and to Helena.
This seemed the best stroke of policy for him. He threw off his
smoking-coat and put on a small, tight, closely-buttoned jacket, which
in any kind of struggle, if such there were to be, would leave no
flapping folds for an antagonist to cling to. Rivers was well-skilled in
boxing and in all manner of manly exercises; he took care to be a master
in his way of every art a smart young Englishman ought to possess, and
he began to think with a sickening revulsion of horror that in keeping
back the telegram he had been doing just the thing which would shut him
out from the society of English gentlemen for ever. A powerful impulse
was on him that he must redeem himself, not merely in the eyes of
others--others, perhaps, might never know of his momentary lapse--but in
his own eyes. At that moment he would have braved any danger, not merely
to save the Dictator, but simply to show that he had striven to save the
Dictator. It flashed across his mind that he might even still make
himself a sort of second-best hero--in the eyes of Helena Langley.
He thought he heard a stirring somewhere in one of the corridors. He put
on a pair of tight-fitting noiseless velvet slippers, and he glided out
of his room and turned into the corridor where the Dictator slept. Yes,
there surely was a sound in that direction. Rivers crept swiftly and
stealthily on.
Soame Rivers belonged to his age and his society. He was born of
Cynicism and of Introspection. It would have interested him quite as
much to find out himself as to find out any other person. While he was
moving along in the darkness it occurred to him to remember that he did
not know in the least whither, to what rescue, to what danger, he was
steering. He might, for aught he knew, have to grapple with assassins.
The whole thing might prove to be a false alarm, an absurd scare, and
then he, who based his whole life and his whole reputation on the theory
that nothing ever could induce him to make himself ridiculous or to
become bad form, might turn out to be the ludicrous hero of a
country-house 'booby-trap.' To do him justice, he feared this result
much more than the other. But he wanted to test himself--to find himself
out. All this thinking had not as yet delayed his movements by a single
step, but now he paused for one short second, and he felt his pulse. It
beat steadily, regularly as the notes of Big Ben at Westminster. 'Come,'
he breathed to himself, 'I am all right. Come what will, I know I am not
a coward!'
For there had come into Rivers's somewhat emasculated mind now and again
the doubt whether his father, Cynicism, and his mother, Introspection,
might not, between them, have entailed some cowardice on him. He felt
relieved, encouraged, satisfied, by the test of his pulse. 'Come,' he
thought to himself, 'if there is anything really to be done, Helena
shall praise me to-morrow.' So he stole his quiet way.
Sarrasin had made himself acquainted with the Dictator's habits--and he
at once installed himself in bed. He took off his outer clothing, his
coat and waistcoat, kicked off his dress-shoes, and keeping on his
trousers he settled himself down among the bed-clothes. He left his coat
and waistcoat and shoes ostentatiously lying about. If there was to be a
murderous attack, his idea was to invite, not to discourage, that
murderous attack, and certainly not by any means to scare it away. Any
indication of preparedness or wakefulness or activity could only have
the effect of giving warning to the assassin, and so putting off the
attempt at the crime. The old soldier felt sure that the attempt could
never be made under conditions so favourable to his side of the
controversy as at the present moment. 'We have got it here,' he said to
himself, 'we can't tell where it may break out next.'
He turned off the electric light. The button was so near his hand that
it would not take him a second to turn the light on again whenever he
should have need of it. His purpose was to get the assassin or assassins
as far as possible into the room and close to the bed. He was determined
not to admit that he had thrown off sleep until the very last moment,
and then to flash the electric light at once. He would leave no chance
whatever for any explanation or apology about a mistake in the room or
anything of that kind. Before he would consent to open his eyes fully he
must have indisputable evidence of the murderous plot. Once for all!
Sarrasin kept his watch under his pillow, safe within reach. He wanted
to be sure of the exact minute when everything was to occur. He fancied
he heard some faint moving in the corridor, and he turned on the
electric light and gave one glance at his watch, and then summoned
darkness again. He found that it was exactly two o'clock. Now, he
thought, if anything is going to be done, it must be done very soon; we
can't have long to wait. He was glad. The most practised and
case-hardened soldier is not fond of having to wait for his enemy.
Sarrasin had left his door--Ericson's door--unlocked and unbarred.
Everybody who knew the Dictator intimately knew that he had a sort of
_tic_ for leaving his doors open. Sarrasin knew this; but, besides, he
was anxious, as has been already said, to draw the assassin-plot, if
such plot there were, into him, not to bar it out and keep it on the
other side. Now the way was clear for the enemy. Sarrasin lay low and
listened. Yes, there was undoubtedly the sound of feet in the corridor.
It was the sound of one pair of feet, Sarrasin felt certain. He had not
campaigned with Red Shirt and his Sioux for nothing; he could
distinguish between two sounds and four sounds. 'Come, this is going to
be an easy job,' he thought to himself. 'I am not much afraid of any one
man who is likely to turn up. Bring along your bears.' The old soldier
chuckled to himself; he was getting to be rather amused with the whole
proceeding. He lay down, and even in the lightness of his plucky heart
indulged in simulation of deep breathings intended to convey to the
possibly coming assassin that the victim was fast asleep, and merely
waiting to be killed off conveniently without trouble to anybody, even
to himself. He was a little, just a little, sorry that Mrs. Sarrasin
could not be present to see how well he could manage the job. But her
presence would not be practicable, and she would be sure to believe that
he had borne himself well under whatever difficulty and danger. So
perhaps he breathed the name of his lady-love, as good knights did in
the days to which he and his lady-love ought to have belonged; and then
he committed his soul to his Creator.
The subtle sound came near the door. The door was gently tried--opened
with a soft dexterity and suppleness of touch which much impressed the
sham sleeper in the bed. 'No heavy British hand there,' Sarrasin
thought, recalling his many memories of many lands and races. He lay
with his right arm thrown carelessly over the coverlets, and his left
arm hidden. Given any assassin who is not of superlative quality, he
will be on his guard as to the disclosed right arm, and will not trouble
himself about the hidden left. The door opened. Somebody came gliding
in. The somebody was breathing too heavily. 'A poor show of an
assassin,' Sarrasin could not help thinking. His nerves were now all
abrace like the finest steel, and he could observe a dozen things in a
second of time. 'If I couldn't do without puffing like that, I'd never
join the assassin trade!' Then a crouching figure came to the bedside
and looked over him, and took note, as he had expected, of the
outstretched right arm, and stooped over it, and ranged beyond it and
kept out of its reach, and then lifted a knife; and then Sarrasin let
out a terrible left-hander just under the assassin's chin, and the
assassin tumbled over like a heavy lump on the carpet of the floor, and
Sarrasin quietly leaped out of bed and took the knife out of his palsied
hand and gently turned on the light.
'Let's have a look at you,' he said, and he turned the fallen man over.
In the meanwhile he had thrust the knife under the pillow, and he held
the revolver comfortably ready at the forehead of the reviving murderer.
He studied his face. 'Hello,' he quietly said, 'so it is _you_!'
Yes, it was the wretched Saffron Hill Sicilian of St. James's Park.
The Sicilian was opening his eyes and beginning vaguely to form a faint
idea of how things had been going.
'Why, you poor pitiful trash!' Sarrasin murmured under his breath, 'is
this the whole business? Are you and your ladies' slipper knife going to
run this whole machine? I don't believe a bit of it. Look here; tell us
your whole infernal plot, or I'll blow your brains out--at least as many
as you have, which don't amount to much. Do you feel that?'
He pressed the barrel of his revolver hard on to the Sicilian's
forehead. Under other conditions it might have felt cool and refreshing.
The touch _was_ cool and refreshing certainly. But the Sicilian, even in
his bewildered condition, readily recognised the fact that the cool
touch of the iron was evidently to be followed by a distressing
explosion, and he could only whine feebly for mercy.
For a second or two Sarrasin was fairly puzzled what to do. It would be
no trouble to him to drive or drag this wretched Sicilian into the room
where Ericson and Hamilton were waiting. Perhaps if they had heard any
noise they would be round in a moment. But was this the plot? Was this
the whole of the plot? This poor pitiful trumpery attempt at
assassination--was this all that the reactionaries of Gloria and of
Orizaba could do? 'Out of the question,' Sarrasin thought.
'I think I had better finish you off,' he said to the Sicilian, speaking
in a low, bland tone, subdued as that of a gentle evening breeze.
'Nobody really wants you any more. I don't care to rouse the house by
using my revolver for a creature like you. Just come this way,' and he
dragged him with remorseless hand towards the bed. 'I want to get at
your own knife. That will do the business nicely.'
Honest Sarrasin had not the faintest idea of becoming executioner in
cold blood of the hired Sicilian stabber. It was important to him to see
how far the Sicilian stabber's stabbing courage would hold out--whether
there were stronger men behind him who could be grappled with in their
turn. He still held to his conviction, 'We haven't got the whole plot
out yet. Anybody could do this sort of thing.'
'Don't kill me!' faintly murmured the wretched assassin.
'Why not? Just tell me all, or I'll kill you in two seconds,' Sarrasin
answered, in the same calm low voice, and, gripping the Sicilian solidly
round the waist, he trailed him towards the bed, where the knife was.
Then there came a flare and splash and blaze of yellowish red light
across the eyes of Sarrasin and his captive, and in a moment a noise as
fierce as if all the artillery of Heaven--or the lower deep--were let
loose at once. No words could describe the devastating influence of that
explosion on the ears and the nerves and the hearts of those for whom it
first broke. Utter silence--that is, the suspension of all faculty of
hearing or feeling or thinking--succeeded for the moment. Sight and
sound were blown out, as the flame of a candle is blown out by an
ordinary gunpowder explosion. Then the sudden and complete silence was
succeeded by a crashing of bells in the ears, by a flashing of furnaces
in the eyes, by a limpness of every limb, a relaxation of every fibre,
by a longing to die and be quiet, by a craving to live and get out of
the noise, by an all unutterable struggle between present blindness and
longed-for sight, present deafness and an impatient, insane thirst to
hear what was going on, between the faculties momentarily disordered and
the faculties wildly striving to grasp again at order. And Sarrasin
began to recover his reason and his senses, and, brave as he was, his
nerves relaxed when he saw in the instreaming light of the morning--the
electric light had been driven out--that he was still gripping on to the
body of the Sicilian, and that half the wretched Sicilian's head had
been blown away. Then everything was once more extinguished for him.
But in that one moment of reviving consciousness he contrived to keep
his wits well about him. 'It was not the Sicilian who did _that_,' he
said to himself doggedly.